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One of
the most frustrating things I have seen as a graduate student was a p-value
of 0.06. In fact, I have seen this terrible number on more than one occasion. A
p-value of 0.06 means that there is a six percent chance that the results I observed
were a result of random chance if there really was no effect. Now, I personally
think, when it comes to ecology at least, that six percent is low. Think about
all the troubleshooting ecological research requires or how we are often
limited to small sample sizes. How different is six percent really from 5
percent? I am not the only one who is
suspicious of the alpha values. I have listened to professors proclaim the
death of traditional statistics and the end of an era of α <
0.05. Ecologists are moving towards Bayesian statistics. If you have
been around FIU long enough you may remember the prestigious Glaser Seminar
speaker in 2014 was Dr. David Anderson.
The other
day I was surprised to see an article that was advocating for lowering al…

Post by: Peter Regier
I was recently fortunate enough to
get an opportunity through the CUAHSI
Pathfinder fellowship to conduct research in Alaska as an extension of my work
with the FCE-LTER.The Pathfinder is
designed to support new experiences for students working primarily in one field
or one location.My project is a
cross-LTER collaboration between the FCE site in Florida and the Bonanza Creek
(BNZ) LTER site in interior Alaska.I’m
using water quality sensors that measure the chemistry of small streams,
including the concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), nitrate, and
other water quality parameters.The
sensors look like this:

We are using sensors to look at differences in water chemistry in streams spanning
a gradient of permafrost coverage.Permafrost is ground that stays frozen year-round, and is a globally
important sink of carbon.The permafrost
in the region where I’m working is discontinuous, and has “drunken forests” of
black spruce that grow at strange angles as t…

In the last year and a half, ten different authors have
talked about 19 diatom species from 19 different genera in our “Diatom of the
Month” blog series (11 biraphid, 2 araphid, 2 centric, 1 epithemioid, 1
eunotioid, 1 monoraphid, and 1 nitzschioid), and we got to know about some
fantastic 2D and 3D diatom art. We reached thousands of people online
via social media (see image below), thus raising awareness about these
beautiful and extremely useful primary producers and environmental indicators.

We importantly
relied on the wonderful “Diatoms of the United States” resource for reference
and inspiration, which has so far produced taxon pages for 155 genera (25 are underway), and 851 species (202 are underway)! This was made possible over the years by more than 110 taxon
contributors, an effort led by Marina
Potapova, Sarah Spaulding, and Mark Edlund and kept under scrutiny by the
review board members. The DOTUS Facebook page provides regular
updates and features as well as news about co…

by Nick Schulte* I think Fragilaria
synegrotesca is a cute diatom. Although long and lanky (nothing wrong with
that!), F. synegrotesca has an
adorable, sometimes very slight, potbelly (Fig. 1).

Fig.
1. a) Live frustules in a rosette colony (http://fcelter.fiu.edu/data/database/diatom/index.htm?species=3568) b) Fragilaria synegrotesca in valve view (Schulte 2014). Now, some boring diatomist (e.g., me) might describe that little bump in the middle
right as “a unilaterally expanded, hyaline central margin” and that’s accurate
enough. But I also like to think of it as F.
synegrotesca’s belly pooch. It brings to my mind the potbellies of
seahorses, pigs, puppies and toddlers, and it seems very boop-able.

But let’s move past the physical attributes of this diatom,
as the allure of this species is in its “actions”. Fragilaria synegrotesca has so far only been reported from karstic
wetlands of the Caribbean and is most well-known from the Florida Everglades. In
the Everglades, F. synegrotesca is
…

Post by: Dong
Yoon LeeEmail:
dolee@fiu.edu Let me start with some questions. Have you ever lost all of your samples in a freezer because of a power outrage? Have you made your family unhappy
(or happy) because you spend more time with laboratory rats? Have you failed to
collect soil samples after a long boat trip because of unpredicted high water
levels? Have you found out that super high phytoplankton production was caused
by your advisor accidentally turning on a light during dark cycles? It is not uncommon to hear these kinds of unfortunate events
from fellow scientists. It seems almost inevitable for biologists to avoid them
because nature is full of surprises and that’s why we love studying biology! But
wouldn't it be nice if you had a robot preventing unwanted events from happening? In
addition, wouldn't it be even better if a robot was easy to program, to make, and most importantly, affordable. We tend to think that a robot is an intelligent
object with arms, legs, or at …